Mould and guides for wet forming a glasses case from Leather by Amazinblaze

Last crawled date: 3 years, 3 months ago

These are the parts I used to create the glasses case as seen in the images.NOTE: Please note that while these are the parts I used for this project, there is quite some room for improvement. I dont know If I will make enough of these in the future to justify Iterating on the mould design, so this is it for now.
To create the case, Four 12x12 cm pieces of 7oz leather are needed to get the outer shell (green in my example), and two smaller pieces, about 4 cm x 10 cm each, are needed to make the connector (brown).
The big mould is used for the shell pieces, where one of the big pieces is soaked in water first, then carefully formed around the bottom mould by hand, until it shows the rough shape. Then, the top part can be pressed on. make sure the backsides of the mould line up, this assures that the round part sits snug. You can apply force to the mould using clamps, but make sure you dont harm the leather.
Let the leather sit in the clamped mould over night, then take it out so that it can dry properly while you mould the next piece.
The stitching guides can be helpful to get equidistant stitching around the curved parts. The holes are designed to fit my awl when printed with my printer. This was a bit of trial and error, so your mileage may vary.
It is advised to stitch the shorter seams first, because once the shell is sewn together, you may have trouble getting the needles through (especially on the side with the connector piece).
The stitching guide for the long seam around the case can also be used as a cutting guide to cut excess leather from the shell parts.
to connect the two shell pieces, you'll need the two smaller pieces. I moulded those as well, but this might be overkill because the leather can be easily bent around the required radius without soaking it.